“You fixed my bike. You packed my lunch. You taught me pasta from scratch because I said boxed noodles were depressing. I only called you Walter.”
Walter looked ashamed. “I don’t remember.”
“I know,” she whispered.
Megan said, “For almost two years, you were the safest person I had.”
Nobody said anything after that.
I grabbed a towel and started cleaning.
Then Walter looked down at the broken pasta on the floor and quietly said, “I used to make it with basil.”
Megan stopped breathing for a second.
“What?” I said.
Walter frowned. “I don’t know why I said that. It just came.”
Megan covered her mouth and cried harder.
I grabbed a towel and started cleaning.
He pulled the red string out from under his shirt.
As I knelt there, Megan said, “You always carried a brass key on a red string. You used to say it opened the box with the important things.”
Walter touched his chest.
He pulled the red string out from under his shirt.
The key was still there.
The next morning I said, “We’re going to your old neighborhood.”
Walter looked nervous. Megan looked wrecked but determined.
I gave the strangest speech of my life.
We drove to a street she had not seen in decades. The old house was still there. Same detached garage.
